Seeking the Way, Be the Way
The first believers were called people of the way. The road consists of all of us… one road… one body… the body of Christ… the true church… the narrow road of true perception… open eyes to see… open ears to hear… paved by people of the way. The true church is one temple made with human stones and Christ is the chief corner stone. When we become one with Christ we merge with Him becoming the way the truth and the life. When we respect the humanity of another we respect humanity as a whole. What we do unto the least of these we do unto God. God is the least of these. I was telling my sons this yesterday. When we respect the image of God in humanity we respect the image of God in ourselves. After 26 years as a believer I am finding it easy to abandon dualism. If we judge, we will be judged because all is one. If we forgive, we will be forgiven because all is one. If we have mercy, we shall receive mercy because all is one.
As people we are looking back at ourselves constantly. What are we are looking through is our perception and our perception is often polluted by our past experiences creating our less then perfect awareness. All of the above includes sin. Sin is our disconnect separating us from true reality. Prayer or meditation has a purpose and that is to lead us to use the spirit lens to look back at our self allowing US to be the straight & narrow road God intended us to be. What we look through determines how we see God our self and others. What we look through determines the road we are on; therefore I believe our perception is the road. Hell is the depths that people go to feel significant, to feel validated and to add meaning, purpose or a mission to their lives. Another way to say this is hell is the depths people will unsuccessfully go to feel significant, to feel validated & to add meaning, purpose or a mission to their lives. Hell is when this quest to find significance separates us from God and each other.
The Bible teaches that we are both flesh and spirit. I see flesh and spirit like two cameras inside our soul. Life is like that movie The Truman Show with Jim Carrey…. accept God also has a camera inside our heads. God is the spirit camera inside our heads… AKA prayer/meditation, but some desperately avoid that camera because they already hate or fear to look within at themselves. YET! When we look at our self through the flesh camera or through the lens of the world we get beat up by our own self judgment. When we look through the lens of the flesh we get beat up by the consequences of our search for meaning. Universalists believe that all eventually are forced by their circumstances to look at themselves through the lens of the spirit camera. It is not far fetched to believe that God has put us here to get to know ourselves and Him in the process. We are constantly diverted by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life and by that He meant to set the example for us to also look at ourselves through the spirit lens, the same way Jesus looked at Himself. Jesus asks us to become the road, to become the way, become the truth and become the life. Jesus asked us to become the lights of the world which should not be covered by a bushel. We see this in the great commission when Jesus grants His same power and authority to His own apostles…. to do even greater things. The above camera analogy is the answer to the question how could God not know us? God is the camera in our heads and when we learn to peer through that camera we allow Him to get to know us by us getting to know ourselves. See the verse below….
Matthew 7:23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Why didn’t God know these people? These are the people who failed to believe that God was a camera inside their heads…. they failed to know themselves and in the process failed to allow God to know them. All of these people’s good works were conducted under sinful motives as they looked at there life through the lens of the flesh. These people used works to validate themselves, to bring a false sense of meaning and purpose in their lives…. but they did not really have a relationship with God (the spirit camera). They did not look through God to find meaning, but instead they looked through religious works, the flesh as a means of feeling like heroes. The only problem with a hero complex is it requires us to vilify (judge) other people for the purpose of elevating ourselves. All of the above proves that Mis-Perception (a lie) is the most popular idol that people worship. To worship the flesh is to create a god in your own image. The biggest lie is serving the flesh or the institution, working for some religious position instead of for love. When people worship the institutional church instead of God… they are actually worshiping Satan (a lie).
The above verse (Matthew 7:23) proves that spirituality is not a title, a category or a box. Spirituality is who you are and not what you claim to be. Gandhi was more of a Christian then most Christians and yet he refused to be labeled. Some people think they are spiritual because they claim some title or believe a certain way…. and those people are fooling themselves. Spirituality is not about the what, but the why. People do right things everyday for all the wrong reasons. People do things to feel good about them self instead doing good in the interest of others. Most people are more about keeping a good image then they are about true love toward others. Religion is addiction to self because religious people only do good for others to improve their image or to get those warm fuzzy feelings inside. Thank God Jesus, Mother Theresa, Buddha, Krishna and Gandhi didn’t think this way. True love requires sacrifice and people love there comfortable lives more then they love rolling up their sleeves and getting dirty for the benefit of others. Yet as Jesus said if one desires to be great then they must become the servant of all.
In conclusion, I propose a new definition of an idol. An idol is looking back at our self through the wrong camera (the flesh). By the time our brain sees something it has already happened. By the time we have seen something our brain has had the time to run it through the lens of our interpretation (the flesh). In a millisecond our brain tries to judge reality based on our sandy foundation (the flesh), our past experience, our less then perfect knowledge and our insecurities. Most of the time our brain actually succeeds at creating an interpretation based upon the sandy foundation of our personal reality (our flesh). To pray without ceasing is to interrupt this process with constant meditation. To look through God (the spirit we share with God) provides us with opportunities to rise above, to go beyond and to conquer our tendency to judge based on our less then perfect personal reality (our flesh). We are the church… We are the road… We are people of the way, the truth and the life… We cannot be contained… A lamp should not be hidden under a bushel or a church building.
